Where: Rocky Point Park (Port Moody), Blakeburn Lagoons Park (Port Coquitlam), Traboulay PoCo Trail (Port Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 20-27°C
Rocky Point
An unusual request at one of the viewing platforms.
Today was expected to get quite warm–and it did. We were very smart and most of our birding today took place on trails with no canopy, because we love the sun.
We started at Rocky Point, where the heron babies are growing up oh-so-fast. They seemed a bit more visible this time, due to being larger and more willing to hang out on the edges of the nests, yearning to escape from the yoke of their parents’ tyranny.
We ventured a bit down the trail, but didn’t see much else, other than a lot of people, because the place was packed. Who knew a warm, sunny Saturday in June would draw people out?
Blakeburn Lagoons Park
One of the two lagoons, with mallards and gadwalls paddling about.
We next moved onto Blakeburn Lagoons Park, which is a fairly compact pair of lagoons reclaimed from an old wastewater site. We got some good views, a bit of goose drama, and Nic felt compelled to shoot some bird poop. One must not question the muse. The muse poops for thee, not me. Or something.
The highlight, strangely, was a butterfly that stopped long enough to allow us to get some very nice shots of it. After a quick trip around the lagoons, we needed more sun, so off we went!
Traboulay PoCo Trail/DeBoville Slough
The DeBoville Slough, wending its way through the wilds of Port Coquitlam.
We’ve been in this area before, but along the southern trail. This time we took the northern, which parallels the slough and eventually leads to the Pitt river, which is where we saw a nesting osprey (neat) and then turned around and headed back. We saw a few birds along the way, too–a robin, a waxwing and a Northern flicker–but most of the views were of the slough, the verdant fields and mountains. And one shirtless jogger.
Although by this point it was getting quite warm, the breeze kept it from getting sticky and awful.
And we also saw a bear, trundling casually through the crops on a field. There was a slough between us and the bear and even though bears can swim, it was not close and seemed pretty mellow. I got a few iffy shots, but it’s definitely bear.
After that, we wrapped up early, as Nic has to help out a theatre full of gay men. As one does.
Although the birds were not out in copious numbers today, the change of scenery was pleasant, as was the weather.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Where: Rocky Point Park, Old Orchard Park, Inlet Park, Old Mill Site Park (Port Moody), Admiralty Point Park, Bedwell Bay (Belcarra), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 15-24°C
Rocky Point and environs
Very low tide at the east end of Burrard Inlet.
Today the forecast was warm and sunny, so I actually slapped on a copious amount of sunblock for the first time this year. It worked. No burning!
We started out with a return to the heron rookery near Rocky Point, as the baby dinosaurs (young herons) should be showing themselves in the nest around now–and they were! There seemed to be a max of three per nest and they were regularly looking about, sometimes getting up and flapping their proto-wings or walking around the edge of the nest. They presumably know to not try venturing out, because it’s a long way down. They are cutely hideous, with this dishevelled just-got-up look, but the stabby eyes already in place.
We ventured out onto Old Orchard Beach after, at my urging, and Nic stepped onto a dubious section to get closer to a heron to get a better shot. The heron flew off and Nic got stuck in the mud. He managed to extricate himself before I could get a photo, though. I went the long way around and remained unstuck.
We did not see much else, bird-wise in the area, but that’s normal. Nic spotted movement under some dirt and mulch and we watched as…something squirmed underneath, looking like it was about to emerge. And then it stopped. We have no idea if it was a particularly robust bug, a mole, or some eldritch horror.
Since we were over on the north side of the inlet, Nic suggested we visit Belcarra and check out some of the trails, so we did!
Belcarra
Stairs dappled in sun and shade on the Belcarra Bay Trail.
Repeating a theme throughout the day, there were a ton of people at the picnic area on the beach facing Boulder Island (the place one goes to rock out, presumably). This was the first summer-like day of the month, and I guess everyone wanted to savour it after most of May has been cooler and cloudier than normal.
We went down a few forest trails and I took possibly my worst-ever photo of a song sparrow with my kit lens. But I switched back to the telephoto as we came out to Bedwell Bay and there we found along the shore, getting pushed by the tide, a bunch of adorably tiny crabs.
This is an area with beautiful trails through forests, nice vistas, but not many birds, so we are unlikely to return too often, but it was nice to check out a new place.
Tlahutum Regional Park
The lily pads are now jumbo-sized at the main pond.
After the new, a return to the old and after some weeks of seeing few herons, they were all over today. We say one here grab a fair-sized fishy from one of the creeks. We also our first cedar waxwings of the season, woo. The big pond also featured a pair of shovellers who had not yet shovelled off. Or maybe never will, because apparently they just go into hiding. The community garden yielded few birbs, but there were shiny swallows, at least one white-crowned sparrow and pollinators on nearly every flower.
We made copious use of the water fountain here, as Tlahutum offers no over at all, and by now it was mid-afternoon.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Blue sky, blue water, no blue birds.
People were parked in pretty much every available space around the Nature House, but we lucked out and got a spot close to it.
The vibe (much as I hate the word) is different here right now for a few reasons:
The water level of the lake is considerably higher than normal. I assume this is a deliberate strategy, maybe to help with the rowing club. The downwisde is no shorebirds.
Bird feeding is currently prohibited due to attracting bears. A few people still were, but it was clear most were obeying and as a result, the waterfowl behvior was different, with many content to stay farther away from the pier, since there were no goodies to be had. This meant fewer adorable close-ups.
And of course, a lot of migrants have migrated. One day we will have coots again. One day.
Also, there were a weirdly large number of people fishing from the pier. Nic jokingly referred to it as International Fishing Day and a few kids nearby were ready to believe it, which, given the things people believe these days, is almost quaint!
We didn’t even catch any squirrels doing the cute squirrel thing. Maybe next time we’ll hit different parts of the trail and be blessed by the return of the mountain bluebirds. It could happen!
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Yes, getting a new camera finally prompted me to go through my photos and actually post some of them, specifically some of the better shots I got while out birding on May 3, 20251I know it looks weird to write “2025” when it’s only three days later, but it’s handy when looking back at posts months or years later.
I need to figure out focus on my Canon EPS R7, as a lot of shots were a bit blurry. I fixed a few of the ones in this gallery, but most are presented as-is, with minor work done on lighting.
Boats on the inlet, Port moody.
A distant killdeer at Rocky Point. I needed all 400 mm of my new telephoto lens to capture this.
Great blue heron swallowing some fishies at Rocky Point.
A Canada goose going on about things.
A Canada goose gosling going on about things.
Puffy-headed white crown sparrow in profile.
A house finch pausing on a wire fence, Tlahutum Regional Park.
A white-crowned sparrow belting it out in the community garden.
A crow against a rather bright backdrop.
A millipede milling about on the trail.
A tree swallow squatting on his house.
Bee getting its pollen on.
The main pond at Tlahutum Regional Park.
Female cowbird seeking seed.
Male cowbird with seed.
Sandhill crane in repose, looking rather orange.
"Sup?"
A soggy gosling coming out of the water.
Goslings deep in conversation.
Pigeon proudly posing.
The super-long train we inevitably got trapped behind as we left Burnaby Lake.
The only decent shot of a wood duck I got. Don't ask how many shots I took.
I call this my Liron Gertsman prizewinning shot. Gimme my award!
Where: Rocky Point Park, Old Orchard Park, Inlet Park, Old Mill Site Park (Port Moody), Como Lake (Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Partly sunny, 14-15°C
Rocky Point Park, etc.
Just slightly to the left of this shot were some killdeer, bobbing and pooping.
Our first stop was the heron rookery near Rocky Point Park, where we were hoping to see baby dinosaurs, otherwise known as nesting young herons. Alas, it seems that, unlike last year when we arrived too late (June 21), this time we may have arrived too early, as all we saw were just adults and usually just their backs or butts. We will try to find the sweet spot in the middle.
We did get to see some more herons close-up, and some killdeer, plus we hadn’t been since last summer, so it was still a pleasant trip.
Como Lake
Como Lake, mostly bird-free.
We next made a brief stop at Como Lake, where we saw our first baby geese. There were two groups, one small, one slightly larger. The parents were being very vigilant and weird.
This was also the first time I’d been using my new camera, a Canon EOS R7, and I was still getting used to it and also having 400 mm of reach on telephoto instead of 250. What I’m saying is a lot of my shots of the baby geese were fuzzy, but not because baby geese are fuzzy, I just had problems focusing on them. But so did Nic, and his camera isn’t new at all! Perhaps I am cursing him. Or he just forgot to change a setting on his camera. Or baby geese are now impossible to photograph because that’s just the random way nature works.
Having seen the babbies, we moved on to destination #3.
Tlahutum Regional Park
The Big Pond™ at Tlahutum, where the lily pad empire is expanding.
Destination #3 was Tlahutum, where, strangely, we saw another pair of cinnamon teals. After never seeing them before, I have now seen them two weeks in a row. Maybe it’s the same pair. Maybe they’re following me. Maybe we’re on the cusp of a cinnamon teal invasion. Or maybe it’s none of these things. We also saw some gadwalls, mallards, blackbirds and in the community gardens, tree swallows and white-crowned sparrows. There were others, like common yellowthroats, but they stayed out of view, all the better to taunt and torment Nic.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Rippled water and dramatic clouds over Burnaby Lake.
Our final stop, as it often is, was Piper Spit. It was a little crowded and we ended up having to wait for two long trains on our way out (one by foot, one by car), but we saw some bonkers goose drama involving three geese and a nest with eggs. The sandhill crane was there yet again, having apparently taken up semi-permanent residence. The relatively high water level meant no shorebirds, though, so boo on that.
This was also the first time all the winter migrants were gone. No coots, pintails or scaups. The coots, at least, may be back as soon as August.
I did get a smattering of fine shots, but problems with focus suggest I need to spend more time experimenting and getting used to the camera, which is fine and normal. Already, I can say the fit and feel is much nicer than the M50, and the reach of the new telephoto lens (which works without an adapter, yay) is almost too good, as I had to fairly regularly pull back on my shots (the lens can also be locked to certain focal lengths if I want to go that route, too).
The Shots
Taken on a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Boats on the inlet, Port moody.
A distant killdeer at Rocky Point. I needed all 400 mm of my new telephoto lens to capture this.
Great blue heron swallowing some fishies at Rocky Point.
A Canada goose going on about things.
A Canada goose gosling going on about things.
Puffy-headed white crown sparrow in profile.
A house finch pausing on a wire fence, Tlahutum Regional Park.
A white-crowned sparrow belting it out in the community garden.
A crow against a rather bright backdrop.
A millipede milling about on the trail.
A tree swallow squatting on his house.
Bee getting its pollen on.
The main pond at Tlahutum Regional Park.
Female cowbird seeking seed.
Male cowbird with seed.
Sandhill crane in repose, looking rather orange.
"Sup?"
A soggy gosling coming out of the water.
Goslings deep in conversation.
Pigeon proudly posing.
The super-long train we inevitably got trapped behind as we left Burnaby Lake.
The only decent shot of a wood duck I got. Don't ask how many shots I took.
I call this my Liron Gertsman prizewinning shot. Gimme my award!
Where: Rocky Point Park, Old Orchard Park, Inlet Park, Old Mill Site Park (Port Moody) Weather: Sunny, 27-28°C
The Outing
Be very quiet, we’re despatrely searching for herons
While it looks like we covered all of Port Moody’s parks, these are all clustered along the north shore of Burrard Inlet along a several km stretch, so it’s actually quite compact. Handy, considering the unusually high heat.
Due to my annoyingly slow recovery from my current cold, I passed on the early part of the birding in Pitt Meadows, but it was mostly out in the open under a cruel sun (ie. hot), though pretty, based on Nic’s pics (plus my recollection of being there last summer). Nic’s quest to see a Bullock’s Oriole paid off, and he didn’t even know it until he was looking at his photos later, which is like getting just the prize you wanted in the bottom of the Cracker Jack box1I dimly recall the prizes being small, plastic and unremarkable, so a Bullock’s Oriole is even better. He also saw a red-winged blackbird with a white tail, which is decidedly weird, as well as cliff swallows tending to their nests, which are reminiscent of something you’d have H.R. Giger design for an Alien film (the nests, not the swallows).
I joined in the next stage of the quest in mid-afternoon: To find the heron rookery at Rocky Point Park before all the baby herons left their nests. We were aided in several ways:
Helpful signs on the path saying, “You’re in a heron colony, be quiet, you clumsy loud human!”
Some directions given to us weeks ago by people who knew of the rookery when we were last at Rocky Point.
It turns out the directions were off probably by a factor of two and the heron nests, which they said would be at or near eye-level, were only at eye level if you were 10–20 metres tall. Which I am not.
But after wandering the lower trail several times (twisty, dirt-packed and filled with enough exposed tree roots to give me PTSD), we opted to try the path higher up, which is paved, civilized and also available for cyclists. This gave us the vantage point we needed, and we saw plenty of nests up (way up) in the trees. Yay! Most of them were empty. Boo. The ones that weren’t had nearly full-grown herons, so we totally missed on the goofy baby dinosaur stage of development. But we will know where to look during the next nesting season.
Although we did see more birds than we normally do at Rocky Point, there still weren’t a lot, and most of my shots were mediocre at best. Even my scenery shots taken with the camera were crooked (I fare much better with the camera than the phone). I blame everything on my cold. At least I never coughed while taking a photo, though that might have at least looked artsy.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold. I have omitted birds from the Nic-exclusive part of the birding, otherwise the list would have been much longer and more interesting.
Where: Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Como Lake (Coquitlam), Rocky Point Park (Port Moody), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 12-20°C
The Outing
With a rare day of sun, we headed off for a day of Friday birding.
Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Everywhere you go, it’s gonna be lily pads.
We started at Burnaby Lake–but with a twist! We would start at the Avalon parking lot, walk to Piper Spit, then continue around the entire 10.3 km loop back to the parking lot.
We had barely begun our trek when, sitting on a railing on the footbridge over Silver Creek, we saw a Swainson’s thrush–a lifer. This is the same spot we also saw a brown creeper, so apparently it’s a favourite hangout for Birds You Almost Never See. After grabbing a few shots before it flew off, we continued on to Fungus Face™, where several Douglas squirrels were dashing about, stopping occasionally to sit on their haunches, nibble on food and look adorable. After a few moments, it became apparent that there were more than just a couple squirrels. Several were taking to higher branches and chittering in a vaguely disturbing way, perhaps as a territorial display. As the vibe shifted from “aw, cute!” to “be prepared to run” we opted to move on.
We’ve had quite a bit of rain recently, and this was evident at Piper Spit, where the land mass to the east of the pier–which had been getting larger–was now completely submerged. The lone coot was absent, but in its place was a single green-winged teal. The male mallards and wood ducks are rapidly shedding their mating colours, and letting themselves go, as men do in the summer. The pier was dominated by geese and their rapidly-growing goslings, some of whom are entering that awkward teen phase where they have tiny heads but giant legs. It was apparently morning nap time, so there wasn’t a lot of activity, though the geese were being weird, as usual.
We moved to the viewing platform next door and appreciated the scenery and sun before heading back down. This is where we encountered Sarcasto. He had a BTL1Big Telephoto Lens, identifying him as a likely birder. He was on the trail leading to the viewing platform and aiming at some kind of bird. Apparently as we approached the bird took off. Someone else nearby wondered what it was, to which Nic responded likely a house finch. Sarcasto turned around to us and said, in a clearly sarcastic tone, “Thank you.” Like we had done a terrible thing by possibly and unintentionally scaring off a finch.
Sarcasto would follow us for much of the rest of the way, probably thinking of new sarcastic things to say the whole time.
We continued on encountered two more lifers (for me, at least, Nic can confirm if both were lifers for him as well): a dusky flycatcher and a willow flycatcher. It was a liferpalooza.
Other highlights from around the lake:
An osprey circling above Piper Spit
A heron flying close overhead, then perching in a nearby tree and looking all stabby-faced for us
the water fountains (yes, these count as highlights)
Several pretty views of the lake, which is already in its lily pad-covered glory
Swallows buzzing low over the water at the rowing club and then hanging out on the marshy shore nearby
A surprise killdeer hanging out with them that we didn’t see until Nic spotted it in one of his photos afterwards
A coyote wandering the trail right near the 10 km mark. It moved off onto one of the horse trails before we could get photos, alas
With over 20,000 steps already logged on my watch, we moved on.
Como Lake (Coquitlam)
Como Lake was the smallest and calmest body of water we visited. Plus baby ducks!
I suggested Como Lake, because it is small and easy to walk around and we might see ducks or something. And we did! We also saw ducklings, which were cute and fuzzy and seemed to enjoy snarfing up the copious amounts of cottonwood dander floating on the lake surface (cottonwood dander was everywhere). This was the place that had famously netted off access points to the water to get rid of the geese and on last visit it had been a 100% success–no geese to be found.
This time they were legion, complete with goslings. But it was worth it for the baby ducks. Maybe they’ll put the netting back once everyone is all grown up.
There are also ping pong tables here now, and playing ping pong on a bright summer day strikes me as both weird and appealing.
Rocky Point Park (Port Moody)
The supports indicating the height of the previous bordwalk can be seen on the right.
The last time we went to Rocky Point Park, we never actually got there, because there was no place to park, and we left without ever stopping.
Being that it was a weekday this time, we actually did manage to park.
On the downside, there were few birds to be seen, mostly just crows. But the scenery was nice–what we could see of it. We hit the Shoreline Trail and discovered that since our last visit they have been replacing the boardwalk at the end of the inlet (the new boardwalk is being raised significantly higher “to accommodate rising sea levels due to climate change”, which is both a good thing to plan for, but also yikes, because the new boardwalk is going to be a lot higher). This meant we had to go around on the street to get to the other side, where a man showed Nic photos of a local bear (the furry kind that lives in the forest and hibernates, not the furry kind that hits on cubs in bars). I shot a few of the crows, then as we headed back, we encountered two people from Environment Canada (?) that identified us as birders thanks to our BTLs. They let us know about a heron rookery that will still have its hideously cute fledglings for about another month before they leave the nest, so we may venture back to catch some shots before then. We didn’t immediately go because at this point we’d walked about 5 million steps.
While the views were nice, Rocky Point ended up being a bit of a disappointment. I mean, even a couple of seagulls dropping clams from the sky would have been something. Alas.
Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
An orange-belted bumblee in the communmity garden.
The people above also mentioned a kind of bunting at Tlahutum, which was our next and last destination. Unfortunately, neither of us could remember their general directions on where to go, but it seemed to be two spots: one in a grove of trees near the first and smaller parking lot (which we never park at), and the other past a pond by the forensic psychiatric hospital. We tried the area near the smaller parking lot first, but did not see any buntings–or any other birds. Merlin stayed mum.
We moved to the main parking lot and noodled around near the entrance to the hospital, discovering a grassy labyrinth (complete with signpost identifying it as such), leading to a debate over labyrinth vs. maze. We saw no sign of any pond. Nic wondered if it might be near the gazebo, but it appeared occupied, and it just felt creepy to wander the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, so we agreed to do more research and try again at a later date.
With the aforementioned 5 million steps in mind, we stuck to the community gardens, and only certain parts of it, as all the rain had resulted in big ol’ puddles forming again at key junctions. We saw a lot of swallows, including a violet green swallow. We briefly saw some goldfinches and Nic managed a single shot before they flew away, possibly forever, satisfied at their taunting of us.
The day ended with me grabbing a couple of slightly fuzzy shots of a robin. I didn’t use manual focus because it looked fine through the EVF. One day I’ll learn.
Overall, though, a fine day of birding, with multiple rare sightings, pleasant weather, no sunburn and plenty of lush, green scenery. 9/10 black-capped chickadees (which we did not see, sad face).
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American bushtit
American goldfinch
American robin
Anna’s hummingbird
Barn swallow
Brown-headed cowbird
Dusky flycatcher
House finch
Marsh wren (heard, not seen, at Burnaby Lake)
Northern flicker
Red-winged blackbird
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee
Swainson’s thrush
Tree swallow
Violet green swallow
Willow flycatcher
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Killdeer
Mallard
Western seagull
Wood duck
Common:
American crow
Rock pigeon
Raptors:
Osprey
Non-birds:
Douglas squirrel (a veritable gaggle of them)
Butterflies: Tiger swallowtail, Milbert’s tortoiseshell and a Celestrina echo (yes, Nic looked up the latter two)
Bumblebees of various sorts, including orange-belted
We did a triple-header today and saw a bunch of birds. Here are a few, from the super common to one I’ve never seen before.
As the crow flies.Goose, goose, goose, goose.The best shot of a killdeer I’ve gotten yet. They do not actually kill deer.This gull went into full “Look at me!” mode and stayed that way for quite a while.Shine on, you crazy wood duck.And the new bird, a green heron! It acted very heron-like but is much smaller than the blue herons we normally see here.Bonus shot of the green heron.
